Raoul in LND (2024)

It’s hard to think of Raoul having become this abusive drunk gambler, and I’m pretty sure most everyone is in agreement that it was done to make Raoul look bad and the Phantom look good.

It’s quite jarring for him to go from a dashing young hero in one musical to seemingly inexplicably this. It doesn’t have to be inexplicable, though—inexcusable, yes, but it CAN make sense.

This is giving the people behind LND an extreme benefit of the doubt, since I’m not entirely sure they put that much thought into it.

Remember this is the Raoul from the musical, and not the book, so the characters traits from the book don’t count.

The gambling—Raoul in the musical uses his fiancée as bait to catch a psychotic serial killer. That whole Don Juan fiasco could be said to be a gamble in and of itself—and with Raoul later rushing headlong into the Phantom’s lair to rescue Christine, taking huge uncertain risks is not out of character for him. Once married, however, he may not have had an outlet for his tendency towards risk-taking, and turned to gambling instead to get that rush.

The drinking—clearly, the gambling didn’t go well for him. You’d think he’d have learned that his risk-taking doesn’t generally heed positive results from the events of the first musical but perhaps he’s just a slow learner. I have heard it said that people often turn to drink to feel like they have power and control. When your life is spinning out of control because of your gambling addiction, you might just turn to alcohol.

There’s also the fact that there could be lasting effects from his deal with the Phantom; trauma, hurt pride, public embarrassment (what did he tell the opera house after his whole plan went completely awry?) and so on. He got caught and was completely helpless while he was forced to watch the love of his life choose to marry a deranged lunatic in order to save him. That feeling of helplessness and trauma could have stayed with him and also caused him to drink.

Then you have the fact that he’s a Vicomte; in the musical he doesn’t lose his title. As my mother put it, “he’s used to being the head honcho and his wife surpassed him and he doesn’t know what to do about it”. In LND they show that clearly Christine has all the attention and fame, and Raoul would feel rather forgotten and out of place, especially since he’s nobility and would be used to being the one everyone pays attention to. He doesn’t know what to do with himself anymore or where he belongs.

Later revisions of LND have taken out Raoul being an abuser, which is good; while him abusing Christine could be another way to not feel powerless, it’s not sympathetic, it’s not okay, and it’s REALLY not Raoul.

Lastly, all these things didn’t just happen all of a sudden; LND takes place ten long years after Phantom, so all this could have gradually snowballed and gotten worse over time.

Overall, it CAN make sense if you think about it, and that at least is comforting and makes the transition less jarring.

Is this the characterization of Raoul I would have chosen for ten years later? Yeah, when I was 12, but not now. In the end it’s still not Raoul, but assuming the writers even put this much thought behind it, I can understand why they chose this interpretation.